Monsoon may hit Kerala by May-end

Risingbd Desk: After standing still for five days over the Andamans, the southwest monsoon advanced on Thursday to cover the entire island chain and weather department said rains would hit Kerala by May-end.

India Meteorological Department officials said they expect the Arabian Sea branch of the monsoon to get activated in about a week, which would lay the ground for the rain system to make landfall on Kerala coast - an event that marks the onset of the monsoon in the country.

"Everything seems normal for monsoon`s arrival. Around a week from now, an eastward moving rain system called Madden-Julian Oscillation will appear in the western Indian Ocean and aid the monsoon`s onset," said D Sivananda Pai, IMD`s lead monsoon forecaster.

However, the outlook for this year`s rainy season has turned bleaker, with IMD releasing its El Nino prediction that says the anomalous weather condition is likely to strengthen during the monsoon months and reach its peak thereafter.

El Nino, Spanish for `little boy`, is an unusual warming of ocean waters in the east and central Pacific that drives a change in wind and rain patterns, which in turn generally weakens the southwest monsoon in India.

El Nino conditions have already set in. IMD said the probability of a weak to moderate El Nino during May-June-July was about 86%. During the subsequent July-August-September period, the chances of a moderate to strong El Nino would grow to 91%, the update said.

The forecast was prepared at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology using a very high resolution coupled model climate forecast system, with data based on initial conditions in April.

The prediction of an El Nino growing in strength in the coming months is in sync with the forecast of the US national weather agency, NOAA.

In further bad news, the IMD bulletin gave the highest probability (48%) to conditions in the Indian Ocean staying neutral. Depending on differences in sea temperatures, the Indian Ocean swings between positive, negative and neutral phases. The positive phase has in the past countered the adverse effects of the El Nino on the Indian monsoon, notably in 1997.

Source: Agencies

risingbd/May 22, 2015/Mukul